Turbo Codes

Azmat Ali Pasha

Goals of Presentation

Why Coding, Error Correction, etc?

Basic terms and concepts
Methods of handling the noise
issues

Error Control Coding/Channel

Coding

What can you do in situations

where data is transmitted over a
noisy channel?
Adding redundancy to information

Check code
Correct Errors

Transmission
1.

2.

3.

Data is digitally recorded and

compressed
Data is encoded by error control
coding
Data is modulated from digital
data to an analog signal

Reception
Analog signal is received and
demodulated back to a digital signal
Data is processed in the Error
Control Decoder

1.

2.

3.

Redundancy is used to check for errors

and correct them

Data is uncompressed and

presented

Transmission Process with

Coding
Application Layer

Data Compression
Convolutional
or
Channel Coding
Turbo coding
Modulation

Frequency Up-conversion

Power Amplification

Application Layer

Data Decompression

Channel
Decoding

Viterbi
or
Turbo decoding

Demodulation

Frequency Down-conversion

Receiver

Sensitivity to Error
Media
Uncompressed
Voice
Uncompressed
Video

Sensitivity to Error
Low Sensitivity
Low Sensitivity

Compressed Voice

High Sensitivity

Compressed Video

High Sensitivity

Data

High Sensitivity

Repetition Code

Simple Repetition Code

Information Sequence {010011}

Codeword {00 11 00 00 11 11}
Code-rate =

Problems with Repetition

Bandwidth Increase
Decrease the information rate

Channel Coding

When NOT to channel code!

Transmitter power is irrelevant

No noise in the channel

Best case Channel Coding

Shannon Limit (ideal)

Shannon hasnt been reached yet
(Turbo codes are the closest)

Code Performance

Bit Error Rate (BER)

Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)

Probability of any particular bit being in

error in a transmission
The ratio of channel power to the noise
power

Best Case

Low BER (fewer errors in final data)

Low SNR (less power req.)

Coding System
Comparison

Error Correction Codes

Block
Convolutional
Turbo code

Technically a block code

Works like both Block and
Convolutional codes

Block Code

Most common is Hamming Code

Take a block of length, k (information
sequence)
Then encode them into a codeword,
the last (n-k) bits are called parity
bits
Parity bits used for error checking
and correcting

Block Code (2D Mapping)

higher minimum weight
of code, higher the
minimum weight
between valid code
words
higher weight, better
decoder performance

Convolutional Codes

Continuous or Streaming
coding
Viterbi and Soft Output Viterbi
are the most common

Turbo Codes

Mix between Convolutional and

Block codes
Require a Block code
HOWEVER, they use shift registers
like Convolutional Codes

Turbo Codes (contd.)

Most common is the

PCCC (Parallel
Concatenated
Convolutional Codes)
Produce high weight
code words
Interleaver shuffles
the input sequence,
uk, in such a way
that it produces a
high weight

Turbo Code Decoder

It requires a soft output decoder

Soft-output

Assign a probability to decoded

information (eg. 1 with a 80%
likelihood)
Outperform hard decision algorithms

MAP (Maximum A Posteriori)

Iterative Decoding

Turbo Decoding

Cycle will continue until certain

conditions are met
The decoder circulates estimates
of the sent data like a turbo engine
circulates air
Once the decoder is ready, the
hard decision is made

Error Corrections Old and

New

Uses

Cell Phone
Satellite Communication
Dial-up Communication
RF Communication (AutoID? WiFi?)

Questions, Clarifications, and

Comments

Turbo Coding Method?

Business Implications?

Reduced Power Requirements

Higher Bandwidth (lower redundancy)